Basic Electrolysis

[Farrah Day]

Hi Rosie

I see where you are coming from. I remember seeing an electrolyser design that was quoted as using the current 'twice' in something similar to what you are suggesting.

Pulsed current was used and the current flowed through the electrolyser doing it's job of electrolysing, but then also through an inductor which stored the energy as you say. During the 'off' period between pulses, the energy stored in the inductor was re-used to electrolyse.

So like you say, if this is implemented correctly, we get to re-use the energy. In theory I suppose, with the correct set up, the energy could be bounced back and forth indefinately (no doubt your double battery idea). Though there would naturally be losses, it still should prove to be twice as efficient.

Furthermore, if some sort of resonant state could be achieved, then it might only need a little kick every now and again to keep it going.

Very interesting and something worth investigating. Maybe if my current project hits a wall and flops miserably, I'll be looking into something along these lines.

[witsend]

Pulsed current was used and the current flowed through the electrolyser doing it's job of electrolysing, but then also through an inductor which stored the energy as you say. During the 'off' period between pulses, the energy stored in the inductor was re-used to electrolyse.

Nearly. Just you don't need to use the stored energy as it's in counterphase to the 'on' period of the switch. Just use the stored to recharge. I'll try and draw up the circuit in better detail. At least enough to show the objectives here.

Farah - if you get a 'closed system' then this will be for 'jam'. If you don't get a closed system this will be still be advantageous. Thanks for considering it. I'm trying to get my mind around how water can be prevented from vaporising? Is that doable? Seems like an insurmountable problem. By the way. Does the water also 'heat up' like steam? Or is the heating the result of the pressure in the cell itself? Sorry the questions are so elementary.

[Farrah Day]

I'm trying to get my mind around how water can be prevented from vaporising? Is that doable? Seems like an insurmountable problem. By the way. Does the water also 'heat up' like steam? Or is the heating the result of the pressure in the cell itself?

Well, my cells are never pressurised as I've never made enough gas for my needs to want to inhibit the gas flow. However, I think that low pressure rather than high pressure would create more evaporation.

Personally I'm not concerned with some of the water vaporising as ultimately this will go someway to slowing the burn rate of the hydrogen. In fact I would even consider adding a water vaporiser or mister to the gas before it enters the cylinders. This is apparently what Herman Anderson did.

Heating causes some of the water to boil off (even if the body of water as a whole is far less than 100 deg C). The power dissipated of course being the result of drawing a large current through the resistive fluid, in exactly the same way that a resistor with a voltage drop across it and current through it, would dissipate energy in the form of heat.

[HairBear]

Here is a picture of one of Stan Meyer's devices called the "Hydrogen Gas Gun". It also uses stacked stages much like what willy has described.

[willy]

Past projects

Farrah Now that I have started posting
I have a question for you? Did you ever have any luck with the magnetic induction cell that was being discussed over at Ou by Alaska-S... the reason I ask I spent a hundred plus and several weeks on it. But only saw a hand full of bubbles through the whole project. There was a patent on this though if you are interested pat # 4,599,158 issued 7/8/1986 Very similar!

[Farrah Day]

Hi Willy

There quickly came a point when I realised that Alaskastar was a prize bull****ter - albeit a very good one. A real charlatan in that he always made out he knew it all and had all the answers... he was always right, never wrong, and to question him was next to heresy. He is lord of the OUPower forum and as such, beyond reproach.

I strongly questioned some points, answers to which were either not forthcoming or deflected with clever sarcasm aimed at myself, and it soon became apparent to me that he had not achieved what he had claimed.

After some heated discussions with him, I suddenly found that I could no longer access the forum - happens to me quite a lot - and that was the end of that.

Circular coil electrolysis apparatus - US Patent 4599158 Description

Yep, I found this patent quite interesting and not understanding how it could possibly work, but wondering if I was missing something, I too attempted to replicate it... alas, without any results.

The explanation of how it would actually work is lacking crucial detail, but I assume that the pulsing electric field of the coil would induce ionisation of the water molecule. However, for this to work, the cations and anions would need to be separated, one ionic species moving toward the centre of the unit, the other type toward the edge, in order to create a voltage drop across the plates. I don't see the mechanism for making this occur, and indeed my experiments seemed to suggest that this is a flaw in the concept.

This, I feel, is yet another good example of a non-working or non-workable patent. People always expect that if something is patented, then it must work, but this simply is not the case.

And if this simple patent does not work, then how many other patented items do not work as specified? Patents, it seems, can be meaningless concepts based on nothing more than an idea - hence my long-running doubts about Meyer's stuff.

[Bob Boyce]

Hello again Farrah

I personally examined the electronics and system used by Herman Anderson. The US DoE (Dept of Energy) would certainly not allow such a system to be used on a passenger vehicle, especially with Homeland Security around these days, due to the high risk of radioactive tritium generation. He was given a personal exemption due to his expertise, and the fact that he had worked for the governement in the specialized field of ionics.

The Herman Anderson car used a basic 3" length of plastic pipe with 13" round metal plates. Pretty much a drum electrolyser to generate the hydroxy gas, using fairly high current pulsed DC. The timing circuit ran at 15 Hz, with the pulse train run through a flip-flop. The two outputs at 7.5 hz each were fed to alternating loads, one was the switching for the pulsed DC driving the cell itself, and the other was the switching for pulsing the car coils. The output of the car coils was directed to a length of ignition wire that was wrapped like a coil around the perimeter of the cell drum, then terminating into a spark gap to the outside of the electrode plate. His electrodes were plated mild steel in order to obtain his desired magnetic effects while retaining chemical resistance to the base electrolyte.

As Herman was an expert in ionics, his goal was to bump up the energy level of the hydrogen to deuterium as simply as possible. While the simple setup can seem to be misleading to those that do not understand radiolysis. The combined effect of the extreme high voltage, and the spark gap, is to create both very sharp charge gradient impulses, and electromagnetic impulses, to irradiate the electrolyte and gas. So while he speaks of radiation, it is not the sort of radioactivity that one would require the use of heavy shielding for. The EMI produced would pretty much be contained by the metal shielding of a closed hood and crowded engine compartment. As long as the voltage was maintained in the correct range, deuterium production could be maximized while tritium production could be minimized.

Yes, there was a water fog injection system. The use of water fog allows for an additional amount of thermally expansive mass to be inducted into the engine, as the water fog will absorb energy during combustion and flash to steam.

There are a lot of similarities in the method that Herman Anderson used, and in the method that Stanley Meyer used in one of his systems.

Bob Boyce

[HairBear]

LOL! Do you realize you just described Farrah's new test cell to a T?

[Bob Boyce]

I was not aware, as I've not been following the whole thread here. I hope she has some good success with it. It's good to see her building something interesting.

I had just read the recent references made to Herman Anderson and thought I would offer my observations. I was consulted on the Herman Anderson Green Machine many years ago after James Robey had bought it and tracked down the missing electronics for it.

Bob Boyce

[TheCell]

Renaissance is Alive!

Well Farrah,...after seeing your cell for the first time all I can say is

I am truly glad to see the renaissance era has not been lost....multitalented.

If you don't mind me asking, what are the holdups, if any,...maybe we can help forwarding this. The BP Oil incident brought even closer to home all the more reason we should work faster.

And, as we discussed...I'll show you mine


YouTube - The CEll 4


Bob Potchen

[Farrah Day]

No hold-ups as such, just trying to avoid going off half-cocked.

I've scaled things down at present in an attempt to determine a few things.

I have discovered that I have greater success with a simple blocking oscillator than my ignition coil set-up. I'm inclined to think this is a frequency related issue, with my ignition coil only being pulsed at around 10KHz, compared to the blocking oscillators operating in the MHz range.

To induce the water molecule to ionise into H+ and OH-, electrons need to move into a higher energy states. And as it takes a photon of specific energy to initiate this transition, it follows that certain frequencies of EMR will work far better than others. To move into a higher energy state, an electron needs to absorb a photon of the precise energy requirement. Too high energy photons are as useless as too low energy photons, so the correct frequency might be critical to ultimate ionisation efficiency.

I'm also investigating the affect amplitude has on the process. Then of course, for maxiumum affect, there is the placement of electrodes to consider.

As I mentioned on the JT thread, the only real difference between my Closed-Loop Electrolyser and the electrolysis being performed by JD's blocking oscillator set up, is that I have a spark gap as opposed to a diode.

Still early days and a lot of details to straighten out, but clearly parts of the puzzle are starting to drop into place.

As far as the Herman Anderson unit is concerned, I'm still at odds with the talk of deuterium and the radioactive tritium.

As Herman was an expert in ionics, his goal was to bump up the energy level of the hydrogen to deuterium as simply as possible. While the simple setup can seem to be misleading to those that do not understand radiolysis. The combined effect of the extreme high voltage, and the spark gap, is to create both very sharp charge gradient impulses, and electromagnetic impulses, to irradiate the electrolyte and gas. So while he speaks of radiation, it is not the sort of radioactivity that one would require the use of heavy shielding for. The EMI produced would pretty much be contained by the metal shielding of a closed hood and crowded engine compartment. As long as the voltage was maintained in the correct range, deuterium production could be maximized while tritium production could be minimized.

Does deutrium have a higher energy level than hydrogen? It's a stable isotope of hydrogen containing a neutron, but I'm not entirely convinced this gives it greater potential energy. Nor am I convinced this can be made in any kind of electrolyser... where would the neutron come from? Surely it is not being suggested that he is creating a neutron?

Sorry, it's too far-fetched... I just don't buy it!

[sebosfato]

Farad

The idea is that when you knock a neutron out of the hydrogen it will become a chain reaction... And this neutron will also become 1 proton and 1 electron ( another hydrogen atom.

[Farrah Day]

Farad

The idea is that when you knock a neutron out of the hydrogen it will become a chain reaction... And this neutron will also become 1 proton and 1 electron ( another hydrogen atom.

I don't follow Seb.... there is no neutron in normal hydrogen in the first place??

Please elaborate.

[Bob Boyce]

Farrah

Just a single reference should be enough to get the wheels turning in your mind. I really do feel that you are intelligent enough to take it from there, but can you overcome your natural tendency to just dismiss everything you do not immediately understand as fantasy.

Isotope separation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scroll down to "Alternatives":

"The only alternative to isotope separation is to manufacture the required isotope in its pure form. This may be done by irradiation of a suitable target, but care is needed in target selection and other factors to ensure that only the required isotope of the element of interest is produced."

You seem to grasp part of the concept of pumping matter to higher energy states, now all you need to do is make the connection that photons are just another form of EM radiation. And yes, isomeric and isotopic changes to matter CAN be driven via EM irradiation. Sometimes it takes multiple wavelengths at the same time in order to obtain a desired effect. Sometimes phase is not important, sometimes it is, it depends upon the goal.

Bob Boyce

[Farrah Day]

Surely this is not about isotope separation though?

I had the impression that it was being suggested that the isotope deuterium was somehow being manufactured.

We know that there is always a certain proportion of deuterium in any given mass of hydrogen, but it is so little what would be the use of it in an electrolyser?

Alternatives
The only alternative to isotope separation is to manufacture the required isotope in its pure form. This may be done by irradiation of a suitable target, but care is needed in target selection and other factors to ensure that only the required isotope of the element of interest is produced. Isotopes of other elements are not so great a problem as they can be removed by chemical means.

This is particularly relevant in the preparation of high-grade plutonium-239 for use in weapons. It is not practical to separate Pu-239 from Pu-240 or Pu-241. Fissile Pu-239 is produced following neutron capture by uranium-238, but further neutron capture will produce non-fissile Pu-240 and worse, then Pu-241 which is a fairly strong neutron emitter. Therefore, the uranium targets used to produce military plutonium must be irradiated for only a short time, to minimise the production of these unwanted isotopes. Conversely, blending plutonium with Pu-241 renders it unsuitable for nuclear weapons.

It's not that I have a natural tendency to dismiss anything that I can't immediately grasp, but rather that I question things that are posted on a whim, yet never explained or elaborated on by the poster.

As far as I'm aware deuterium was one of the first elements to form after the Big Bang, and to the best of my knowledge cannot be created artifically - it is always separated from an existing mass of hydrogen or water. (And if I'm wrong about this someone cite a reference to it's creation)

So that only leaves the tiny amount available in nature.

Deuterium is a proton, a neutron and an electron. Right?

It already exists in nature and can be separated from normal hydrogen in numerous ways, one of which is electrolysis. But I see no way we can create a neutron in an electrolyser or by any form of irradiation produce any more deuterium than already exists.

This all seems too crazy to even contemplate, so if I'm missing something obvious here... then please elaborate.